Re: Why...?

[tEd ® KiLLiAn <tedkillian@charter.net>]

On Oct 21, 2011, at 10:45 PM, william middlemiss wrote:

> Why do you 'loop'?

I am 58 years old and have been consistently doing it since the early '80s 
- I hardly know how to stop - it's an addiction.

> What got you started on this path?

In the mid '70s a couple of friends took me to the house of another mutual 
friend of theirs in a nearby town. This guitar-playing friend of theirs 
had rigged up a couple of tape machines on the mantle above the (unlit) 
fireplace with a single loop of tape between them. He played some tasty 
but rudimentary slide on a Strat-copy guitar into this crude echo setup 
hooked to his stereo. I was so entranced by what I heard that I vowed from 
that moment on I would figure out a way to do it myself. I was poor and 
could not afford gear on my own for a long while yet. First, every now and 
then, I'd rent an Echoplex type tape delay from a local music store. Then, 
in the early 80's it was a series of daisy-chained analog stomp-boxes (not 
terribly satisfactory) and thens a DigiTech DDL of some sort with 
something like 4 seconds. A little later that decade, I got my first pair 
of Electro Harmonix 16-Second digital delays (wow). In the early '90s I 
added the original Lexicon JamMan, and then a Vortex. In '96 I got a pair 
of EDPs and kept them and used them until just last year. Now I am using 
Matthias Grob's EchoLoop VST plugin to emulate a pair of EDPs from within 
my MaxMSP laptop guitar rig.

> Was it a mechanism for solo performance?

Yes. I've played guitar since I was 10, but until I was about 30 I was 
crippled by extreme shyness and performance anxiety. I could not even 
imagine playing with other people and being in a band when I was a 
youngster. It was easier for me to deal with machinery than to ask someone 
to come over and jam - and you could totally forget about any thought of 
gigging. I just wasn't there yet. Plus, in my nerdy musical/social 
isolation I developed a lot of idiosyncratic ways of doing things (bad 
habits, never learning to do it right, or in the "conventional" manner). 
In all the years between then ad now I have overcome my shyness, and a 
good deal of my performance anxiety (though not all). I've learned music 
theory, and have gotten out and about, played with people, made a record 
or two - not famous, but what's the point of that?

> to record a vamp?

I suppose so, but I have always been a finger-picker, not a strummer. So, 
from the beginning, my concept was always contrapuntal, one melody against 
another. Of course, I use it like that a lot now, as a repeater and 
layerer of all sorts of musical "gestures" - and as a creator of "ambient" 
drones, pads, and textures too. Also, to create percussive, rhythmic 
patterns. I've always been rhythmically "challenged." I do not seem able 
to maintain a steady rhythm on a drum or other percussion instrument for 
more than a few bars at a time. Having a looper to capture and repeat what 
I AM in fact able to do and then replicate it and keep it steady is a 
tremendous help.

> A compositional device, a new avenue of expression? (repetition as 
> compositional device?)

Of course, all of the above, guilty as charged. 

> An 'artistic statement' in itself? as if to say "I DONT NEED NO STINKIN 
> BAND!"

Not at all. At this point I would always much rather play with others and 
even not to loop at all if that is required to do so.

> A fallback for artistic roadblocks? (as in--an easy way out)

Possibly, but like I said, I've been doing it so long it is simply what I 
do when left to my own resources. I do not think of myself (now, or in 
truth, really ever) as a "looper" as some sub-category of musician. I am a 
fully-formed and self-respecting musician (at least part of the time, when 
my neuroses will allow). People may give me anxiety, but an "empty canvas" 
never has. What to do is not a problem I have. There's a whole universe of 
ideas to dip into, providing I am well-rested and gear and I both re ready 
to play.

> A way of exploring new rhythms?

Sure, things even happen by accident, serendipity, that are very 
interesting to me.

> A textural apparatus? sound design?

Dito.

> A means of 'warping sound'?

Having a big enough "rig" to have processing both before and after the 
looper(s) has been important to me for several years now. I do not take as 
much advantage of this as some - Jeff Kaiser, Andre LaFosse, Per Boysen, 
and the Walker brothers (Rick and Bill) come to mind. But as my MaxMSP rig 
grows and expands (and, conveniently, without taking up any more physical 
space, thank God) I imagine I will eventually do more with this in future. 
The only real drawback with doing it in software on a laptop (for me) is 
the fact that I am really a poor programmer, and being married with 
family, day job, and a mortgage, I do not have time to become a better 
one. So it goes. Hopefully I will live long enough to retire on "Looper 
Island" with all my other "older" looping friends and colleagues here. 
Maybe then I will have time.

> With me, it's been all of the above, and I've jumped among 7 or 8 
> devices along the way.

The only way to learn is to do . . . and do a lot. As an alternative to my 
larger rig I have always maintained a smaller one (of some sort) on the 
side - like owning both a BIG 128-COLOR BOX OF CRAYONS and then a little 
pocket-sized one to go anywhere. I am never as entirely comfortable with 
the little one as I am the big one (for obvious reasons) so it constantly 
changes - pedals and devices rotating in and out all the time. Currently 
the little rig consists of a WP20G, Sustainiac Model B, Ernie Ball volume 
pedal, Line6 M13, Boss DD20, and a Lexicon Vortex. 

> How about you?

Having fun every chance I get. I plan on getting out to the garage today 
for at least a couple of hours.

Cheers,

Ted